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Marxist economist Paul Sweezy passed away February 27, 2004 at the age of 93. Sweezy founded Monthly Review in 1949 with Leo Huberman. The "Monthly Review school" became an extremely influential intellectual tendency, particularly outside North America. Two of Paul Sweezy's most influential books are The Theory Of Capitalist Development (published in 1942) and Monopoly Capital, which he wrote with Paul Baran (published in 1966).
Monopoly Capital argued a "stagnation theory," at the heart of which was the idea that capitalism had so altered since Marx's time, the secular tendency of the rate of profit to fall was no longer applicable.
[from the History of Economic Thought site]
"Sweezy was also a proponent of an 'underconsumption' interpretation of Marx, a new theory of imperialism rooted in 'dependency' and the examination of Keynesian demand management as a life-valve for capitalism—ideas commonly associated with the Monthly Review...
...Paul Sweezy is best known in economics for two not-so-distinct concerns which have dominated his economics: analyzing monopolistic competition and updating Marxian thought into 'Neo-Marxian' economics. His work on the former is best exemplified by his discovery of the 'kinked' demand curve for oligopoly (1939) and his prize-winning study on the English coal industry (1938)...."
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